Stop Calling Poppi’s Vending Machines ‘Out of Touch’

In a rage bait dominated feed, provocative influencer marketing is one of the only ways to earn mindshare among consumers.

I won’t lie, I’m kind of jealous of the influencers who got Poppi vending machines delivered to their doorsteps. I love Poppi — the gut-healthy soda brand that’s in nearly every bodega in NYC and has been able to win over consumers in a way kombucha couldn’t. If I had that vending machine, I would have happily drank 10 sodas everyday and invited all of my friends over to try it out themselves. But the people on the internet who have called Poppi ‘tone-deaf,’ ‘insensitive,’ and ‘wasteful’ for sending influencers gigantic packages in a time where people ‘can’t afford fancy soda’ have failed to understand how influencer marketing works in 2025. The key to success is rage bait.

Where Poppi ‘failed’

In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, as a number of brands raced to make noise on socials before the game, Poppi decided to think out of the box. Literally. In addition to airing a 30-second commercial during the big game, Poppi sent large trucks to some of the most popular influencers’ homes to hand deliver one of its biggest PR packages yet — a full-size Poppi vending machine. As seen in creator Kaeli Mae’s TikTok, couriers came to her home to load in the machine and pack it with hundreds of cans of soda. Another creator Vidya shared a video of her kids, ecstatic to test out the machine, explaining they could only keep it until after the Super Bowl.

But instead of watching in awe, viewers at home chose violence. Creators posted videos explaining how they felt this entire marketing scheme was too extravagant and ‘out of touch’ in a time when people are struggling to make ends meet. They also expressed concern with the activation’s glorified overconsumption and environmental impacts from the vending machine’s waste and emissions. One creator shared that she thought Poppi should have shown up ‘for the everyday average joe’ by putting the vending machines in schools, hospitals, at random places on the street to give the soda to people who needed it.

Monday night, Poppi Founder Allison Ellsworth hopped on the brand’s TikTok page to share an apology as well as some context around the activation. She explained that influencer marketing has always been a big part of the Poppi brand, as we’ve seen ranging from sending creators bathrobes to giving Alix Earle (who is also an investor in the brand) her own house at Coachella. Allison said that since the activation had ended, Poppi planned to put the vending machines in places where the community wanted them to be located.

She should have never had to make that video, though, because this was an influencer marketing campaign. The job of influencers is to sell items to their followers. Creators who claim that these activations are too obnoxious fail to realize that this is exactly what they aim to achieve. They want to capture the attention of a wide audience over something controversial. They want to get people talking. Poppi can’t just give soda away to random people with no platforms hoping they’ll post about it. For brands, the return on investment is far higher when given to creators who will make engaging content around it.

Enter Olipop

One thing about the healthy soda market is that there are only two leaders: Poppi and Olipop. With neck and neck US retail sales of $554 million and $528 million respectively from September 2023 to September 2024, Olipop saw an opportunity in Poppi’s demise. The other gut-healthy soda brand started leaving comments on creators’ videos critiquing Poppi, reading ‘32 vending machines for $25k per machine yikes’ or ‘pr boxes for real customers I say’ and ‘it’s a $8M per 30 seconds, and it was a 60 second ad sooo…’ and more.

I’ve seen quite a few creators applaud Olipop for this behavior. But I don’t see enough people talking about how this is exceedingly poor form from a competitor. Just because TikTok has become a casual platform for brands to interact with their followers does not make it okay for Olipop to disparage its counterpart. It reflects very poorly on the brand, which honestly, has struggled for a long time to have a successful marketing strategy like Poppi.

Provacative influencer marketing wins

Seemingly ‘out of touch’ influencer marketing is not new to TikTok, and has consistently been the one of the best strategies to draw eyes to a brand. One of the prime examples is makeup company Tarte and its brand-trips. Spending thousands of dollars twice a year to take the top influencers to luxury destinations Bora Bora, Necker Island, Dubai and more angers viewers at home — but with each negative comment, earns the brand a ton of attention.

While creators are making videos grabbing Olipop out of vending machines instead of Poppi, posting comparison taste tests, and talking about the chemistry behind each soda and which is actually better for you, at the end of the day, this controversial campaign worked incredibly well for Poppi. They got a ton of mindshare on the FYP. That’s successful influencer marketing.